Kit, with a sigh and a roll of his eyes, flung his cloak around him; and with long, slow, melancholy strides clomb the arduous steep of Carfax. Here at that time--if any faith there be to bruit of veterans--eighty well-equipped quadrigæ daily passed with prance of steeds and sound of classic trump, and often youthful charioteer, more apt to handle than win ribbons. Forty chariots came from smoke, and wealth, and din of blessed Rome; and other forty sped them back, with the glory and mud of the country divine.
The moody Kit ensconced himself, away from the tramp of the vulgar crowd, in the beetling doorway of a tailor who had put his shutters up; and thrice being challenged by proctors velvet-sleeved, and velvet-selvaged Pro--"Sir, are you a member of this university?"--thrice had the pleasure of answering "No!" Once and again he wiped his hectic cheek and fevered brow with a yellow bandana, from which the winner of last year's Derby was washing out; and he saw the "Defiance" and the "Regulator" pass, newly horsed from rival inns, exalting their horns against one another, with splinter-bars swinging behind cocked tails, all eager for their race upon the Cheltenham road. But he saw not the author of his existence; yet no tear bedewed his unfilial eye, though these were the likeliest coaches.
"All right," he said, putting his pipe in its case; "governor won't come home to-night. I'm in no hurry, if he isn't. I think I'll have sheep's trotters. It's a beastly time of the year for anything." Twitching his cloak, which had two long tassels, he strode, from his post of observation and morbid meditation, towards a tidy and clean little tripe-shop. He knew the old woman who kept it, in George Street; and she always put him into good condition by generous admiration.
Alas! he had stridden but a very few strides, when he met the up-coach from Woodstock, wearily with spent horses making rally for the Star. The driver (a man of fine family at Christchurch, now in his seventh term, and fighting off his "smalls"), with a turn of his strong arm, pulled the team together, while with the other hand he launched a scouring flourish of the shrill scourge over every blessed horse's ears.